Luke Kawa5/22/24

US stocks fall from records as cracks appear in consumer brands

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% amid a swath of bad news for consumer-oriented companies as well as big declines in utilities and energy stocks.

Target tumbled 8% after posting poor quarterly results, its worst session since November 2022. Shares of Lululemon fell more than 7% after the company announced its chief product officer was leaving. And Williams-Sonoma had a wild day, opening more than 10% higher on strong quarterly earnings before ending up down 11% by the end of the session after guiding that margins would be flat year-on-year for the rest of 2024.

Utilities, consumer discretionary, and energy sector ETFs all fell more than 1% on the day. Within the S&P 500, stocks that declined outnumbered stocks that rose by 141, the worst day for market breadth this month.

Meanwhile, shares of BuzzFeed got a big lift after Vivek Ramaswamy, former Republican presidential candidate and pharmaceuticals entrepreneur, took an activist stake in the troubled media company.

After the close, Nvidia posted (another) blowout quarterly earnings report, sending shares higher in the after-hours session.

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J. Edward Moreno

Hims rises on revenue beat, discloses it’s again in partnership talks with Novo

Hims also disclosed on Monday that it’s in talks with Novo Nordisk to make the drugmaker’s weight-loss drugs available on its platform. Last time, that didn’t go so well.

Palantir reports Q3 numbers

Palantir posts ninth straight earnings beat, boosts guidance

Here’s how the numbers look.

Matt Phillips8h

Tasha Matsumoto

Amazon and the AI trade sustain stock gains

Stocks kicked off what is historically their best month of the year on a positive note, with help from Amazon and AI.

PAMPLONA, NAVARRA, SPAIN - 2025/07/09: Morante de la Puebla, a bullfighter from Seville fights a bull from the Alvaro Nunez ranch in Pamplona's Plaza Monumental during the 2025 San FermÌn festival

markets

Trump’s “impossible trinity” on AI and energy

Everyone loves a good trilemma.

In economics, the most famous of the genre was developed by Fleming and Mundell, which posits that you can only successfully achieve two of the following three objectives: the free flow of capital, a fixed exchange rate, and independent sovereign monetary policy.

George Pollack, senior US policy analyst at Signum Global Advisors, proposed a trilemma of his own to describe the Trump administration’s competing policy aims as a red-hot AI boom devours power and leaves households miffed by rising electricity bills.

He wrote:

“This note flags what we believe to be a simple reality whose salience will continue growing in US politics in coming months: the Trump administration, in its remaining three years will face a trilemma as the nation waits for its energy bet to play out — proving able to achieve two, but not all three, of the following objectives:

-Fulfill AI’s energy-appetite.
-Keep repressing renewable sources of energy.
-Appease American electricity consumers.”

Trump AI trilemma

As for evidence that the Trump administration is taking a fossil fuels-first approach while stunting renewables, Pollack pointed to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which shrinks access to tax credits for green energy, as well as the end to the federal pause on liquefied natural gas export permits. However, it would be “inaccurate and unfair” to blame President Trump’s policies for surging electricity prices in recent months, he added.

While the government has pursued the expansion of nuclear power as a way to solve this trilemma, the long lead times involved are incongruent with a short-term fix.

Palantir reports Q3 earnings results

Palantir climbs toward a fresh record high ahead of earnings report

Traders and Wall Street are waiting to see whether Palantir’s latest numbers after market close today will continue to beat expectations.

Matt Phillips12h

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